Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey data finds Coventry High School to posess dedicated faculty who work well together, numerous opportunities for reading, writing, and problem solving, and specialized expertise. The survey also makes the following suggestions for improvement:
Engage all learners, challenge all students, and believe and expect that every student is both capable and can learn at high levels.
Provide explicit and quality instruction in how to read, write, and problem solve in all courses. Seek professional development to do this.
Ensure that instruction is relevant and connected to students’ lives. Facilitate learning to ensure this.
Encourage, celebrate, and motivate every student to be a life-long learner.
Seek professional development in differentiated instruction in how to engage all learners.
Continue to provide a variety of opportunities for reading, writing, and problem solving.
Continue to collaborate with your colleagues to share your expertise.
I've always felt that by tying the subject matter that you are presenting into students' everday lives, or at least showing them how it relates to their lives, makes a bigger impact on their motivation to pay attention to what you (as the teacher) are talking about. Facilitating instruction can also be a tricky task due to time constraints on classes, especially large classes. Acting as a guide for instruction rather than a conveyer of information (or a dictator) takes time to accomplish but I feel that the student is more apt to retain the information if they are coming up with the answers to their questions instead of having the answer just handed to them. They are forced to think about the problem at hand, use their prior knowledge/logical thinking skills, and come up with an answer on their own using the guidence of the instructor for assistence. I see a great deal of practical application and real-life connection of subject material in many of the classes that I have observed at Coventry High School. There is also a great deal of encouragement/motivation being demonstrated by the faculty toward their students. The one thing that I do not see a tremendous amount of is facilitating instruction, which in my opinion, can be very difficult to accomplish in the average high school classroom setting. In higher level classes this is often accomplished very easily and without a great deal of time elapsed due to the motivation of the students and their ability to problem solve. I do see evendence of this at Coventry HS. The toss-up between using this with a lower-level class is do you sacrifice the quality of the information retained or the quantitiy of information you are able to present. I find that lower performing students often are easily frustrated (causing them to become less motivated) when trying to solve the problem on their own without being walked through it, which takes time. If they are just given the example and then the answer, they often do not get very much out of the lesson. I think the school realizes this because I see efforts to find a balance between quality of instruction and quantity of instruction.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey data finds Coventry High School to posess dedicated faculty who work well together, numerous opportunities for reading, writing, and problem solving, and specialized expertise. The survey also makes the following suggestions for improvement:I've always felt that by tying the subject matter that you are presenting into students' everday lives, or at least showing them how it relates to their lives, makes a bigger impact on their motivation to pay attention to what you (as the teacher) are talking about. Facilitating instruction can also be a tricky task due to time constraints on classes, especially large classes. Acting as a guide for instruction rather than a conveyer of information (or a dictator) takes time to accomplish but I feel that the student is more apt to retain the information if they are coming up with the answers to their questions instead of having the answer just handed to them. They are forced to think about the problem at hand, use their prior knowledge/logical thinking skills, and come up with an answer on their own using the guidence of the instructor for assistence. I see a great deal of practical application and real-life connection of subject material in many of the classes that I have observed at Coventry High School. There is also a great deal of encouragement/motivation being demonstrated by the faculty toward their students. The one thing that I do not see a tremendous amount of is facilitating instruction, which in my opinion, can be very difficult to accomplish in the average high school classroom setting. In higher level classes this is often accomplished very easily and without a great deal of time elapsed due to the motivation of the students and their ability to problem solve. I do see evendence of this at Coventry HS. The toss-up between using this with a lower-level class is do you sacrifice the quality of the information retained or the quantitiy of information you are able to present. I find that lower performing students often are easily frustrated (causing them to become less motivated) when trying to solve the problem on their own without being walked through it, which takes time. If they are just given the example and then the answer, they often do not get very much out of the lesson. I think the school realizes this because I see efforts to find a balance between quality of instruction and quantity of instruction.